EUROPEAN GROUP FOR THE STUDY OF
DEVIANCE AND SOCIAL CONTROL
ESTABLISHED 1973
Coordinator: Emma Bell
Secretary: Monish Bhatia
The Hopeless (Situation), still from 'Girls Behind Bars', BBC documentary
(2008). Painting by Eva Merz, 120x160 cm (2008/09)
From 2007 to 2010, Eva Merz worked on the topic of female prisoners in the Scottish
criminal justice system. You, Me, Us & Them is a book containing a series of interviews
offering different perspectives, opinions and first-hand experiences of this system. The book
can be purchased or downloaded for free from the following website:
http://www.gsaevents.com/exhibitions/publications/youmeusandthem For more information
about the project, see: http://www.newsocialartschool.org/wipMain.html
‘
Phil article
Website administrator: Gilles Christoph
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I European
Group 40th
Anniversary
Conference
Celebrating the work of Stan Cohen
Abstract submission: FINAL DEADLINE
Conference fees & registration
Photo exhibition
II European
Group news
European Group/ Centre for the Study of Crime, Criminalisation and
Social Exclusion Conference: Mark Hayes reflects on the ‘Sites of
Confinement’ conference
New national representatives
Working Group on Prisons, Punishment and Detention
European Group Resolutions
European Group Youtube Channel
III Comment
and analysis
IV News from
the Europe and
the world
StratosGeorgoulas and DimosSarantidis: ‘Migration and State crimes:
A critical criminological approach and a case study in Greece’
Joe Sim: ‘Where is penal activism? Contesting the neoliberal prison’
AustriaEuropeFinlandFranceGermanySloveniaSwitzerlandUnited
KingdomUSA
CELEBRATING 40 YEARS …
I European Group Conference
Critical Criminology in a Changing World: Tradition and Innovation
University of Oslo, Norway
29th August to 1st September 2013
http://www.europeangroup.org/conferences/2013/Index.htm/
http://www.jus.uio.no/ikrs/english/research/news-andevents/events/conferences/2013/CCIACW/
Katja Franko Aas, professor in Criminology at the Department of Criminology and Sociology of Law,
University of Oslo, will be speaking at this year’s European Group conference. She specialises in the use of
advanced information and communication technologies in contemporary crime control strategies, border
controls in particular, and in globalization processes and their impact on criminology and criminal justice.
CELEBRATING 40 YEARS …
********
Celebrating the work of Stan Cohen
In tribute to Stanley Cohen, we would like to invite delegates to the Oslo conference to
present papers which reflect the impact Stan Cohen had both on the European Group as
well as on criminology more generally.
ABSTRACTS: FINAL CALL!!!
Abstracts are to be submitted by 28th April2013 to p.j.ystehede@jus.uio.no. In the subjectheading, please state ‘EUROPEAN GROUP -2013 – ABSTRACT – NAME’. IN THE
ABSTRACT, PLEASE INCLUDE FULL NAME, POSITION AND CONTACT INFO AS
WELL AS WHICH STREAM YOU WISH TO SUBMIT YOUR PAPER TO. Please note
that it will not be possible to accept abstracts after this date.
Conference fees
Full fee for participants incl. dinner reception
2200 NOK 295€*
Full fee for students incl. dinner reception
1500 NOK 200€
Full fee for participants excl. dinner reception
1600 NOK 215€
Full fee for students excl. dinner reception
900 NOK 120€
Please note that fees in euros are approximate only and may vary depending on the exchange
rate at the time of registration. Fees are more expensive than usual this year due to the high
costs of living in Norway but they do include the proceedings, all coffee/tea breaks and
lunches during the conference (Friday – Sunday) as well as a welcome reception. In addition,
fees include the cost of participation in a number of social events from which delegates can
choose during the conference.
Conference places are limited to 200. Priority will be given to those who are presenting
conference papers. However, a number of places will be reserved on a first-come, first-served
basis for those who are not planning to present a paper. For those delegates, registration
is now possible. Please contact Per Jorgen at p.j.ystehede@jus.uio.no. He will send you a
code which you will need to log onto the registrations page on the university website.
For those of you who are planning to present a paper, please wait until you have
received confirmation that your abstract has been approved before registering. You will
have received an answer by the 15th of May 2013. If your abstract is approved, you will
receive a user-name and password to be able to log on to the ‘Registration Forms’ page on
the University of Oslo website where you will have to fill in some information (name,
country of origin, email + will be able to pay electronically). Please note that payment has to
be made upon registration. The registration is only valid after the payment has successfully
been carried out. Participants will receive a confirmation of their registration and a receipt for
their payment by email immediately after their online payment. As the payments are online
and the participants get a receipt from the credit card company as well, no other receipts will
be provided to guests.
CELEBRATING 40 YEARS …
A photo exhibition celebrating 40 years of the European Group will be organised at the Oslo
conference. If any of you have any photos that reflect the history of the Group, please send
these either electronically to p.j.ystehede@jus.uio.no or by mail to Per Jorgen, Postboks 6706
St. Olavsplass, 0130 OSLO.
Oslo Marina (from www.visitnorway.com )
II European Group News
European Group/ Centre for the Study of Crime, Criminalisation and Social Exclusion
Conference
This conference on ‘Sites of Confinement’, ranging from immigration removal centres to
probation hostels and prisons, was jointly organised at Liverpool John Moores University on
Friday 22nd March. Speakers included Emma Bell, Andrew Jefferson, Monish Bhatia, Joe
Sim and David Scott from the European Group and Eloise Cockcroft from the migrant
support group, Reprieve. Mark Hayes, who attended the event, shares his thoughts:
Monish – perhaps you can put this in a text box like the newsletter articles
Conference: Sites of Confinement
Centre for the Study of Crime, Criminalisation and Social Exclusion
22 March 2013 Liverpool JMU
Report by Mark Hayes
The above conference was used to launch the European Working Group on Prisons,
Detention and Punishment, and was organised by Vicky Canning of Liverpool John Moores
University. In fact, as a non-expert in this field, I saw attendance at this conference as an
opportunity to learn something interesting about penal policy, incarceration and modes of
confinement, rather than as an opportunity to contribute anything meaningful to the debates.
Inevitably, therefore, my comments on the conference are impressionistic rather than
CELEBRATING 40 YEARS …
analytical, and I apologise in advance for that. Nevertheless my thoughts may still provide
other European Group members with a flavour of the event.
The first presentation was delivered by Emma Bell, who provided an excellent
contextual overview of the neo-liberal framework within which penal policy has been
constructed. This was important, of course, not only because practical policy outcomes
cannot be detached from the ideological assumptions which currently prevail, but also
because that particular ideological manifestation, “neo-liberalism”, is almost entirely
pernicious in its social consequences. The emphasis on specifically “neo-liberal” solutions
has infected penal policy, and Emma Bell made this point with admirable clarity. In fact,
listening to Emma I was reminded of an old joke: “how many neo-liberal free market
economists does it take to change a lightbulb?” Of course the answer is “none, because they
all sit around waiting for the ‘invisible hand’”. Hayek, Friedman and the other disciples of
unfettered free enterprise capitalism have an awful lot to answer for!
In the subsequent sessions Vickie Cooper examined semi-penal hostels, and made
interesting observations about “punishment by dispersal”, and Andrew Jefferson outlined an
ambitious comparative research project which aims to assess prisons in Kosovo, Sierra Leone
and the Philippines – research which will undoubtedly yield important empirical data.
Monish Bhatia provided some extraordinary detail on the actual experience of asylum seekers
and the social effect of the attempt to control “illegal” migration. Monish’s prescient remarks
were underscored by the contribution of Social Worker Eloise Cockcroft of Revive, an
organisation which provides support and legal advice for those people seeking asylum. Eloise
provided evidence to indicate quite clearly that the Border Agency is not “fit for purpose”. In
fact Eloise’s eloquent presentation induced a variety of emotions and threw into a much
sharper light the perverse priorities of a Coalition government which appears to know the
price of everything and the value of nothing! Those members of the European Group anxious
to discover more about this might consult the website of the National Coalition of AntiDeportation Campaigns (NCADC). Here there is information on how to supply practical help
to those individuals requiring assistance, two of whom (Fozia and Nawaz) related their story
to conference members. The experience of Fozia and Nawaz was a potent reminder of the
human cost of toxic social policies.
In the afternoon Joe Sim articulated a message that was not only witty and
informative, but deliberate in its underlying purpose of speaking truth to power. The
presentation, moreover, was delivered in undiluted working class Glaswegian mode – it
bristled with righteous indignation and anger at the grotesque inequity, indeed the sheer
absurdity, of contemporary penal policy (my partner is Glaswegian, so I know it doesn’t pay
to make them angry – I often have to sleep with one eye open!). I was left with two overriding impressions after listening to Joe: firstly that the students at JMU are lucky to be taught
by him; and secondly that it would be great to see him on Question Time with Theresa May!
The latter prospect is unlikely of course, not least because Joe could deconstruct and destroy
a Ministerial reputation in the time it takes to boil a kettle! Joe Sim is simply too dangerous
for widespread public consumption.
Dave Scott ended the conference with a concise account of what needed to be done,
and he set out a programme of action designed to engage activists with a shared agenda. It
was a perfect way to finish because Dave embodies that synthesis of academic and activist
which is so characteristic of the European Group. Dave Scott has the capacity to critically
evaluate and conceptualise, as well as being able to plot a progressive path toward a better
future via an emphasis on more sensible and socially responsible penal policy.
Overall the conference was successful because it facilitated a broad contextual
analysis, it examined key areas of weakness in policy practice by focussing on specific
examples, and it constructed a programme of action designed to address the difficulties that
had been identified. This is precisely what committed, critically engaged academics in the
CELEBRATING 40 YEARS …
social sciences should be doing. (However, if I was to make a single critical observation it
would be that I would have thought Vicky Canning could have provided better weather! It
was freezing, and I am certain that if Sam Fletcher was still at JMU she would have organised
blinding sunshine!).
Can I also point EG members in the direction of a forthcoming conference organised
by Dave Whyte, who looks to have assembled an outstanding collection of contributors.
“How Corrupt is Britain?” is not only apt, it is set to be another example of an event which
embodies all the features characteristic of the European Group – academic excellence, critical
engagement and progressive political activism.
Finally, can I take this opportunity to inform you that my good friend and comrade
Tommy McKearney (ex-IRA/Hunger Striker and leader of the Ex-Prisoners’ Assistance
Committee, Ireland) will be speaking at Solent University, Southampton on 10 April at 2pm
in the Sir James Matthews’ Building – all welcome!
25 March 2013
MH
New national representatives:
We are pleased to announce two new national representatives for
Macedonia : Hasan Jashari (h.jashari@seeu.edu.mk)
Bulgaria: Slavka Dimitrova (sdimitrova@bfu.bg)
Other country rep ???
European Working Groups
The ‘Working Group on Prisons, Detention and Punishment’ was launched in Liverpool
at the ‘Sites of Confinement’ conference (see above). It now includes over 50 members. The
group provides a network and database for teachers, researchers, students and activists across
Europe (and beyond) who have an interest studying prisons, detention and punishment. The
working group will provide an opportunity to share our knowledge of sites of confinement
and the operation of the penal rationale and help establish new links with activists and
academics worldwide who critically engage with the current forms, extent and nature of
detention and punishment. The working group also aims to foster a greater understanding of
contemporary penality; offer possibilities for collaborative research; and work towards
emancipatory change.
David Scott will be acting coordinator of the working group, accompanied by a steering
group including the European Group Coordinator (Emma Bell) and the Group Secretary
(Monish Bhatia). A new working group coordinator will be elected at the AGM in Oslo.
Should anyone be interested in taking on this role, please get in touch with David.
A working manifesto and full details of membership will soon be posted on the European
Group website.
Please address all enquiries
prisonworkinggroup@gmail.com.
to
the
new
CELEBRATING 40 YEARS …
working
group
e-mail
address:
European Group Resolutions
Resolution against the excessive use of detention in the UK and across the globe
Members of the European Group for the Study of Deviance and Social Control would like to
express their deep concern at the record high levels of detention in the United Kingdom in
2013. We believe that the number of people currently detained under immigration, mental
health and penal law is unacceptable and presents a serious danger to democracy. We believe
as academics, students, activists and members of the general public that it is important that a
principled and practical stand is taken now against current expansionist penal policies and call
upon the government of the United Kingdom to make immediate provision for a radical
reduction in the number of people detained. Members of the European Group also offer their
full support to activists and campaigners currently working to expose the brutal realities of
detainment in the UK and elsewhere and offer our solidarity with their struggles for a more
socially just society and the promotion of more humane means of dealing with problematic
human conduct popularly referred to as 'crime'.
Resolution in support of the National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns and
similar activist organisations across the globe
Members of the European Group for the Study of Deviance and Social Control
(http://www.europeangroup.org/) and the Centre for the Study of Crime, Criminalisation and
Social Exclusion (http://ljmu.ac.uk/HSS/CCSEResearchCentre.htm) would like to express their
solidarity
with
the
National
Coalition
of
Anti-Deportation
Campaigns
(http://www.ncadc.org.uk/) in its struggle to end the inhuman and degrading treatment of
people caught up in the asylum and immigration system in the UK. We call for an end to the
criminalisation of refugees, migrants, and asylum seekers who are routinely denied access to
fair justice and the right of sanctuary. We offer our solidarity to activists across the globe
seeking to protect the rights and interests of migrants
Youtube Channel
Please subscribe to the European Group youtube channel. The number of subscribes is
directly linked to the length of the broadcasts allowed the channel, so to help establish this
new initiative please subscribe (click at the top of the page 'subscribe') as soon as you can
http://www.youtube.com/europeangroup Please send ideas for programmes and recorded
lectures that you would like adding to our youtube channel to Emma and Monish at the
europeancoordinator@gmail.com. Please also let Emma and Monish know if you think you
might be interested in helping to maintain our you-tube channel.
III Comment and analysis
Dominique Moran
Bastoy Prison Island: “loss of liberty is all the punishment they suffer”
Dominique Moran reflects on differences in carceral geographies
CELEBRATING 40 YEARS …
In The Guardian [on 25 February], Erwin James visits Norway’s Bastoy prison [see
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/feb/25/norwegian-prison-inmates-treated-likepeople] to look at conditions branded ‘cushy’ and ‘luxurious’, but which deliver the lowest
recidivism rates in Europe. The report details the conditions in which prisoners live in Bastoy
(in self catering ‘pod’ communities) rather than in mass cellular accommodation, and the
attitude towards punishment which prevails in Scandinavia. Even in Norway’s Skien
maximum security prison, the loss of liberty is all the punishment that prisoners are intended
to suffer.
This report from Bastoy reinforces the differences in penal systems with which
carceral geographers are concerned, and recalls the philosophy towards the conditions of
imprisonment in neighbouring Finland which is displayed in the Sentences Enforcement
Act: “Punishment is a mere loss of liberty: The enforcement of sentence must be organised so
that the sentence is only loss of liberty. Punishment shall be enforced so that it does not
unnecessarily impede but, if possible, promotes a prisoner’s placement in society. Harms
caused by imprisonment must be prevented, if possible. The circumstances in a penal
institution must be organised so that they correspond to those prevailing in the rest of society.
Prisoners must be treated justly and respecting their human dignity.”
What this essentially means is that Finland has for decades been decoupled from the
US (and increasingly the European) tendency to politicize criminal justice policy to the extent
that criminal justice becomes a political tool rather than a balanced assessment of criminal
justice interventions. As Lappi-Seppälä (2002, 33) observes, in these contexts ‘the higher the
level of political authority, the more simplistic the approaches advocated. The results can be
seen in slogans that are compressed into two or three words, including “prison works”, “war
on drugs” and “zero tolerance”’ which in turn leads politicians to ‘pander to punitive (or
presumably punitive) public opinion with harsh tough-on-crime campaigns’. In Finland,
prison is not considered to “work” and the solutions to social problems are not ‘sought where
they cannot be found – the penal system’ (ibid 33). In Norway and Finland, then, it may be
argued that prison policy is informed more by an understanding of the likely success of
specific interventions for the stated aims of incarceration, than by a political imperative to
respond to public opinion, or as Ruth Wilson Gilmore (2002, 16) has argued, to use the
prison system as ‘a project of state-building’ (Moran & Keinänen, 2012).
Much of the work within the new sub-discipline of carceral geography originates in or
pertains to the highly incarcerative, or ‘hypercarcerative’ contexts of the US, the UK and the
Russian Federation, raising questions over the transferability of theorisations of the carceral
to other less carcerative, or actively ‘de-carcerative’ settings. By drawing attention to the
penal context of Scandinavia, this Guardian article underlines the need to pay particular
attention to context when theorising carceral space.
First published on the blog ‘carceral geographies’, 25 February 2013. See
http://carceralgeography.com/2013/02/25/bastoy-prison-island-loss-of-liberty-is-all-thepunishment-they-suffer/
Author Biography: Dominique Moran is Senior Lecturer in Human and Carceral Geography
in the School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of
Birmingham, UK and member of the Global Prisons Research Network, a multi-disciplinary
network for scholars worldwide researching prisons and other institutions of confinement –
from the everyday life of specific institutions, to the wider political impact of penal policy
changes.
CELEBRATING 40 YEARS …
IV News from Europe and the world
Australia
Job Opportunity
Lecturer
in
Historical
Criminology,
School
of
Humanities
and
the
School of Behavioural Cognitive and Social Sciences, University of New England. See
https://admin.une.edu.au/v12/WK8127$APP.draw_attachments?P_VACANCY_REF_NO=2
13055&P_CALLER_URL=WK8127ZZDOLLARZZAPP.QueryListZZQMARKZZZ_VAC
ANCY_CAT%3DACADZZAMPZZZ_ORDER_BY%3D1
Closing Date: 9 April 2013
Canada
Conference
The International Conference on Penal Abolition (ICOPA) is a bi-annual gathering of
activists, academics, journalists, practitioners, people currently or formerly imprisoned,
survivors of state and personal harm, and others from across the world who are working
towards the abolition of imprisonment, the penal system, carceral controls and the prison
industrial
complex.
The next conference – ICOPA 15 – is being held on Algonquin Territory in Ottawa, Ontario,
Canada at the University of Ottawa from June 13 to 15, 2014. See
http://www.actionicopa.org/
Denmark
Konference - The Stuck, the Mobile and the Dislocated: Reflections on Life in Ghettos,
Slums, Camps and Prisons
The Conference will take place at Aalborg University’s Copenhagen Campus between
October 30 and November 1, 2013.
What is the relationship between ghettoes, camps, places of detention and prisons? To what
extent are these sites entangled and how do they animate each other empirically and
theoretically? How do structures of stuckness, confinement and mobility impact on the
possibilities of making life in such sites? Can comparing and analyzing these sites together
provide new insights into troubled and precarious lives? These are the questions we aim to
address during this conference, drawing on different sites characterized by stuckness,
mobility and displacement. Take for instance the relationship between the ghetto and the
prison. We might ask what difference it makes to be confined in a prison or in a ghetto. Are
they radically different forms of confinement or can they be conceptually compared? Or we
might ask about the significance of the circulation of bodies between ghettos and prisons.
What does this circulation mean for the people in the sites and the sites themselves? What is
the relation between confinement in different forms and citizenship, material possessions and
the state? Similar questions can be asked about relocation sites, slums and refugee camps.
Each of these sites is characterized by flows and enclosures of people: dislocated, confined,
stuck or mobile. Each is characterized by a tension between the temporary and the
permanent; between exclusion and inclusion; between boundaries and their transgression. In
CELEBRATING 40 YEARS …
many ways, what is ultimately at stake seems to be the connection between involuntary
confinement and forced mobility versus desired place-making and the freedom to move.
In order to explore these issues, we invite papers that inquire into these different sites with a
particular focus on their entangled nature and the ways in which populations and people are
confined, dislocated, mobile or stuck. These sites include prisons, refugee camps, urban
relocation and resettlement sites, ghettos and urban housing projects, migration reception
centers and other kinds of camps across the global North and South. In doing so, we aim to
bring together scholars from different analytical fields - criminology, prison studies, urban
studies, geography, conflict studies, migration studies and refugee studies - to engage in an
inter-disciplinary conversation about the possibility of life and power in sites of confinement.
The conference will combine key note addresses and workshop presentations. Confirmed
keynote speakers will be:

Mary Bosworth, Faculty of Law, Oxford University

Elizabeth Povinelli, Department of Anthropology, Columbia University

Michel Agier, EHESS, Paris

Daniel Hoffman, Department of Anthropology, University of Washington
If you are interested to participate, please register and/or submit an abstract of no more than
250 words before May 15, 2013 to either Simon Turner (sturner@dps.aau.dk) or Steffen
Jensen (sje@dignityinstitute.dk).
See: http://www.dignityinstitute.dk/servicenavigation/nyheder-ogaktiviteter/aktiviteter/2013/10/konference-the-stuck,-the-mobile-and-the-dislocatedreflections-on-life-in-ghettos,-slums,-camps-and-prisons.aspx
Europe
Report
A report by Caritas Europa analyses the impact of the economic crisis in Ireland, Greece,
Italy, Portugal and Spain, focusing particularly on unemployment, child poverty and in-work
poverty. See http://www.caritas-europa.org/code/EN/inte.asp?Page=1505 The report is also
available to download in French.
France
News and reports
Conference
Angela Davis gave a conference at Paris III University on 19th March. You can watch it here:
http://www.univ-paris3.fr/angela-davis-conference-exceptionnelle-a-la-sorbonne-nouvelle211403.kjsp?RH=ACCUEIL
CELEBRATING 40 YEARS …
Greece
Statewatch analysis: The rise of xenophobia and the migration crisis in Greece: The Council
of Europe’s wake-up call: “Europe cannot afford to look away”:
http://www.statewatch.org/analyses/no-218-greece-coe.pdf
REECE & CoE Committee for the Prevention of Torture visit to Greece: Letter:
http://www.statewatch.org/news/2013/mar/greece-letter-to-cpt.pdf
Public statement by academic criminologists in Greece
The regeneration of the centre of the Greek capital city has been closely associated with
systematic operations of mass coercion targeting a large and diverse population of
impoverished people. The systematic concentration of the latter by any means in the inner
city, having contributed decisively to the degeneration and the readjustment of the local real
estate market, is now succeeded by the expulsion and humiliation, also by any means of the
very same populations. Following the migrants and the suspects of any kind, now drug
dependent individuals, HIV patients and every other group needing social care are dealt with
by police operations whose mandate appears to be summarised in the motto 'let everything
disgusting disappear'.
Last week, 132 drug addicts were suddenly arrested in the Athens downtown area and
were transferred to the migrants’ detention centre of Hellenic Police Academy near Athens
(‘Amygdaleza’ camp) on the pretext of public health concerns. They now appear to constitute
the preferential object of a brand new criminal policy doctrine. Under this doctrine, the
Hellenic Police merges with and absorbs all health and welfare services and, for all practical
purposes, neutralise all relevant competent authorities such as OKANA (Organisation
Against Drugs) or KETHEA (Therapy Centre for Dependent Individuals) and so on. This
development obfuscates the real stakes by relegating the issue of drugs to a matter for an
inhumane collaboration between police, EKEPY (National Health Operations Centre) and
KEELPNO (Hellenic Centre for Disease Control and Prevention). Thus, yet again, a complex
social issue is being reduced to a question of aesthetics, police coercion and infectious
disease.
As academics, criminologists and citizens, we cannot remain silent. We express our
grave concerns regarding and our complete and resolute opposition against these
developments in criminal policy. We join our voices with those of the competent services that
have already reacted against these operations aiming to merely remove human misery from
all public view. We note that the right to therapy of those individuals experiencing the plight
of drug addiction a right which has been affirmed by the recent drug reform legislation, is
now being annulled because of this official fanfare. This right cannot possibly be exercised in
the context of police clean-up operations, which only reinforce the exclusion and
stigmatisation of these fellow humans.
The combination of the spectacle of coercive power, embellished as it may be with
occassional touches of humanitarianism, with the policies that weaken rehabilitation services
and compress social welfare blatantly violates the constitutional guarantees of social welfare
and rule of law. It offends human dignity and makes the condition of the weaker in society
even worse.
CELEBRATING 40 YEARS …
In today's extreme conditions, which are conducive to all kinds of aberration and
strengthen those who act against all democratic and social guarantees, human rights and
scientific truths, the institutional guarantors of legality should act more responsibly and
thoughtfully. They should determine with precision the limits of public action and not
transgress them. Police crackdowns, however elaborately they may be disguised, are not a
response that may satisfy any conscientious human being.
We call upon our colleagues, all professional and scientific organizations, the Greek
society, the democratic parties, members of parliament, the media and all conscientious
fellow citizens, to react with all legitimate means against this escalating humanitarian crisis,
the violations of legality and the further erosion of whatever is still left of the welfare state in
our country.
Georgios Antonopoulos, Teesside University, UK
Stratos Georgoulas, University of the Aegean
Nikos Koulouris, Democritus University of Thrace
Grigoris Lazos, Panteion University, Greece
Georgios Papanicolaou, Teesside University, UK
Olga Themeli, University of Crete
Sophia Vidali, Democritus University of Thrace
Ireland
Linda Moore can be heard speaking at the Rosemary Nelson Annual Memorial Lecture on the
case of Marian Price, Frances McKeown and other women prisoners in Northern Ireland. She
draws on research carried out with Phil Scraton and highlights the impact of solitary
confinement on the health of prisoners and discusses how detention conditions breach basic
human rights. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vtB0osOYS8&feature=youtu.be
Portugal
Conference
The School of Criminology of the Faculty of Law of the University of Porto is pleased to
announce the International Seminar on Criminal Prevention, Justice and Security, to be held
in Porto during the 11th and 12th April of 2013. The Seminar will be a forum for discussing
the relationships between justice, criminal policies and human rights, but also juvenile
delinquency and urban safety at the international level: research experiences from Spain,
Belgium, France and Portugal will stimulate the debate and roundtables on the subjects
considered. All those interested must register through escolacr@direito.up.pt.
Fee: for one-day attendance: €30 for regular or €25 for students; for two-day attendance: €50
for regular or €40 for students.
United Kingdom
News and analysis
CELEBRATING 40 YEARS …
Report on restraint: Inside a young offenders institution: the Commons justice committee
reveals that 8,419 incidents of physical restraint were recorded in 2011/12, up 17% on the
previous year Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images
Reports/Statistics
Prisons ill-equipped to manage the growing challenge of older inmates with dementia. New
report Losing Track of Time is based on research from prisons around the world dealing with
the
challenges
of
an
ageing
prison
population.
pdf
of
report
link
below
http://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/content/assets/PDF/publications/losing-track-of-timepdf?view=Standard
In 2011 Revolving Doors Agency was commissioned to undertake research to extract
learning and increase understanding of the dynamic between common mental health
problems, social exclusion and offending through first-hand accounts. the report 'hope inside'
pdf
can
be
dowloaded
at
the
beloing
link
http://www.revolving-doors.org.uk/documents/hope-inside/
Conferences, seminars and lectures
The CCJS Whose future is it anyway?
Tuesday 16 April
Professor Danny Dorling and Dr Judith Watson will discuss young people's life chances in
the UK. They were the brains behind our life chance comparison
website www.comparefutures.org
The lunch time event (11.30 - 1.30pm) will be an opportunity to examine the data and share
ideas about practical solutions to the postcode lottery for young people. It's free to attend but
places are limited.
Criminalising Extreme Pornography: 5 Years On
8th May 2013, 14:00 to 17:30, Hogan Lovells Lecture Theatre
What impact has the controversial criminalisation of extreme
pornography had over the last 5 years? Has it stemmed the proliferation of images of sexual
violence? Or has it simply tackled the easy targets? Is it already time to think about reform?
And, if so, what kind?
5 years on from the passing of legislation to criminalise the possession of extreme
pornography, this seminar will examine the effect of the 2008 Act. It will bring together
CELEBRATING 40 YEARS …
academics, activists, policy-makers and other regulatory authorities to evaluate the success or
failure of the legislation and to ask what, if any, reforms are necessary to secure progress
toward this objective.
Confirmed speakers include:

Simon Walsh (barrister and alderman of the City of London)

Fiona Elvines (Rape Crisis, South London)

Holly Dustin (End Violence Against Women Coalition)

Alex Dymock (University of Reading)

Clare McGlynn and Erika Rackley (Durham Law School)
Registration opens at 1.30pm. Presentations will begin at 2pm and end at 5.30pm.
The event is free, but registration is required and places are limited. To book a place, please
contact law.events@dur.ac.uk
GLAD creates a supportive environment which nurtures and develops both academic and
student involvement in the area of Law & Gender. It organises a wide variety of events, from
informal workshops to more formal staff seminars and conferences, in which research can be
disseminated and during which scholars, students, activists and practitioners can come
together to share research, ideas and experiences.
www.dur.ac.uk/glad
Contact n.j.evans@durham.ac.uk for more information about this event.
Download this event in iCalendar format
‘A Liberal Tide: Towards a Paradigm Shift in Latin American Migration and Asylum
What is Justice? Re-imagining penal policy
International two-day conference, 1–2 October 2013, Keble College Oxford
Call for papers and posters
This conference forms part of the symposium What is Justice? Re-imagining penal policy.
The symposium is charged with generating intellectual debate that can act as a springboard to
contest the conventional role of the penal system, ultimately promoting a new, achievable
paradigm that will deliver a reduced role for the penal system while maintaining public
confidence, fewer victims of crime and safer communities.
The Howard League for Penal Reform is looking for papers and posters from academics,
policy makers, practitioners, PhD students and researchers from within the criminological
and legal disciplines. We are also keen to include contributions from those working within
the fields of philosophy, geography, political science and economics. We will consider
theoretical, policy and practice-based contributions on a wide range of issues that encompass
the broad theme of What is justice? as well as papers on the themes of:

Local justice and participation
CELEBRATING 40 YEARS …

Social justice, human rights and penal policy

The role of the state
Abstract
guidelines
Proposals should be titled clearly and should not exceed 250 words. Please include the
proposer’s name and contact details along with their job title or role.
Please submit abstracts via email to: Eleanor.Biggin-Lamming@howardleague.org
Closing date: 20 May 2013
Decisions about the posters will be made by the end of June 2013.
More information about the conference and how to submit papers can be found
at http://t.ymlp316.net/wybmapawybeatauwuanauj/click.php.
‘How Corrupt is Britain?’ The Centre for Crime and Justice Studies and the University Of
Liverpool School Of Law and Social Justice have jointly organized a conference on Friday
10th May 2013. There will be an evening showing of the film `Who Polices the Police?' by
Ken Fero. For more details see: http://www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/hcib.html
Job Opportunities
We are advertising for a Professor and a Lecturer to join Criminology in the School of
Humanities and Social Science at LJMU. Closing date: 08/04/2013. See
https://jobs.ljmu.ac.uk/intranet/wd_portal.list?p_web_site_id=4005&p_function=map&p_titl
e=Current+vacancies
USA
Media:
A powerful account of one prisoner’s experience in solitary confinement in a maximum
security prison in New York State is available to read here:
http://solitarywatch.com/2013/03/11/voices-from-solitary-a-sentence-worse-than-death/
Temple University's Heather Ann Thompson talking about the history and legacy of mass
incarceration in the U.S. on Radio Times, WHYY
http://whyy.org/cms/radiotimes/2013/02/27/the-history-and-legacy-of-mass-incarceration-inthe-u-s/
CELEBRATING 40 YEARS …
ABIG THANKS to all the European Group
members for making this newsletter
successful. Please feel free to contribute to
this newsletter by sending any information
that you think might be of interest to the
Group to Emma/Monish
europeangroupcoordinator@gmail.com
Please try to send it in before the 25th of
each month if you wish to have it included
in the following month’s newsletter. Please
provide a web link (wherever possible).
CELEBRATING 40 YEARS …